


Like Dylan in the Movies

by roebling



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-26
Updated: 2011-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-23 03:04:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roebling/pseuds/roebling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brendon never expected this random guy who posted a 'Roommate Wanted' ad on Craigslist to become the most important person in his life. It was kind of crazy, how it had happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Dylan in the Movies

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Belle & Sebastian.

"So," Spencer said.

Brendon -- mouth full of Nutella and strawberry compote waffles, cheeks bulging comically -- looked up. He was full, already full but they were so good he had to keep eating. Plus, he’d paid fifteen bucks for them and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to get his money’s worth.

"So," Spencer said. “I applied for that job I was talking about."

Brendon chewed. The waffles were intensely delicious, but almost in a bad way, like when he succumbed to absurd temptation and ate a spoonful of frosting from the can that always lurked in the back of their fridge. It was good, so good, but it made him kind of want to never taste anything sweet again.

“The one at that non-profit?” he asked, between bites.

“Yeah,” Spencer said. Then, a pause. “Actually. I got the job.”

Brendon's eyes bugged. He took a sip of his mimosa. The bubbles tickled his nose.

Spencer frowned, pushed the remains of his own (unadventurous) omelet around his plate.

"Well," he said, amending. "I got an offer."

Mouth dry, Brendon said, "Dude, that's awesome! Spence, why didn't you say something earlier?"

The bell above the door chimed. A couple around their own age walked in -- man and woman, arm in arm. The cafe was full. Every time table was seated. The waitress glanced around, wild-eyed. They'd been sitting for a while, lingering over Sunday brunch, but Brendon would not leave until he'd defeated his Nutella-and-strawberry-compote waffles.

"Ah," Spencer said. He looked pale, dark shadows under his eyes. He'd been working hard -- long hours day after day -- and hard work for Spencer would constitute a super-human effort for any ordinary mortal. He put in so much time at the office that sometimes Brendon joked he should bring a tent and camp out there.

Those jokes were sometimes greeted with Spencer's sour-lemon puss face, but sometimes they made Spencer smile.

But really, Spencer was absolutely awesome and it was definitely time that he abandon the lame-ass, leaky ship of the banal financial behemoth where he worked. Brendon knew or suspected that Spencer kind of hated his current job; he never really said anything that bad but after a meeting with his unctuous snake-oil-slick boss he’d come home with tight lines of tension around his mouth and a dark scowl. Spencer was way too awesome to get hassled by some middle-age-crisis asshole of a boss. He deserved better. He totally deserved this new job.

Spencer was still frowning. "Well," he said. "I didn't want to make a big deal of it before I found out for sure. There were other people up for it, too. And I don’t know yet if I’m going to accept the offer."

Brendon -- who had been eyeing those last few bites of waffle warily -- snorted. "Are you nuts? Dude, you have to take it. This zombie corporate hamster wheel job is killing your soul. Why wouldn't you take it?"

"Ah," Spencer said again. "That's the thing. It's. I'd have to move to L.A., to be near the company headquarters”

There it was.

"Oh," Brendon said. "Wow. That's ..."

The waffle turned into lead in his belly. The cheery blue and red tables faded to gray scale. The bright October sunshine did nothing to dispel the sudden chill. "That's uh, that’s pretty far. But Spence, you've been working so hard for this."

"I know," Spencer said. "I know." His fist was clenched. "I mean, I know I’ve worked hard, and I know that if I don't take this opportunity it’s not like another one is just going to fall into my lap. I just …” He paused, looked down at his plate. “It's going to be weird, leaving."

"Yeah," Brendon said. "Oh, yeah, totally." He felt cold and unsettled. He felt like he might rattle apart if he permitted himself even one second of self-indulgent pity. "I'm almost totally positive that it's a requirement that you be tan if you want to live in L.A., dude, and I'm sorry to say that you don't come close to passing. I'm going to have to have to buy you a gift certificate to tanning salon."

Awkward, stiff, dumb joke, but Spencer rolled his eyes and smiled fondly. Spencer was always such a fucking good sport, always laughed at the dumbest, most banal of Brendon's jokes, the jokes that made other people shake their heads in ridiculous frustration when they thought he wasn’t looking.

"That's not true," he said, a little easier. "I get tan in the summer, anyway. It's not my fault that I come from fair-skinned stock. I bet I'll be tanner than you even once I'm out there. I’ll probably spend all my time on the beach."

"Oh, no way," Brendon said, but inside the gears and cogs that kept his heart beating seized up. He knew, with certainty, that Spencer would go. “This coming from the guy who once said he didn’t mind going to Coney Island, he just wished there were a little less sand.”

Spencer snorted. “What they have there is not sand,” he said. “It’s grainy dirt.” His spoon rang against the side of his coffee cup, accidentally, as he stirred. "I'm going to talk to Hester, though. I'm sure she'll let you take over the lease."

Their landlord adored Spencer and might seriously have considered leaving the apartment to Brendon in her will, if Spencer asked nicely enough. She was … she was going to miss him, too.

"Oh," Brendon said. "Yeah, that would be ... Thanks." He grinned, too broad, and speared the last of his waffle. It was too much for one bite, but he didn't trust himself to speak, so he shoved it in his mouth and he chewed.

Three years ago -- twenty-one years old and living in his parents’ house in Vegas still -- Brendon had spent his nights looking at apartment shares on CraigsList, dreaming of life in Seattle, in Houston, in New York, anywhere, really, that offered the promise of something even a little more vivid than his drab desert existence. He had at that point been working at the Smoothie Hut for six years, was manager of his branch, and he knew that unless he cut and run sometime soon he would never be free of that hated teal apron and visor. He would spend the rest of his life smelling like spoiled fruit unless he did something soon.

For weeks he’d been reading ads for ‘Roommates Wanted’. Pointless, because had no real concrete plans, no actual motivation to get up and get out. It had been late, in the single-digit hours of the night, and he’d had an awful, awful time at work the day before -- customers complaining that there was too much banana and not enough pineapple in their smoothie, miscreant children unattended by their parents spilling all over the floor -- when he read a listing for an apartment in New York City, in the East Village, which was an evocatively unspecific name -- what village? East of where? And he wasn’t sure afterward what about the ad made it seem so sympathetic, so unassuming, so casual in its request for potential roommates but so confident that someone ideal would respond, but it made him want to live there, live in that life that was so ideal you could be assured that someone would want to step into it, pick up just where the last roommate had left off.

Brendon didn’t print out the posting. Later, that seemed a misstep, but at the time, he was deliriously tired and the email he wrote in response to the ad seemed wobbly and uncertain as a dream.

In the morning it had seemed even more like a dream, just a shadowy remembrance of writing an email -- the clatter of the keyboard, the blue light of the screen, professing a shared enthusiasm for Guitar Hero -- something he’d done or had wanted to do.

He never expected to get a reply, not in a hundred years. When he saw the email in his inbox from sjsmith@gmail.com he nearly deleted it as spam. Good thing the subject line rang a bell; if it hadn’t he might still be standing behind the counter at the Smoothie Hut, listening to the engine of the blender whine and breathing in the sickly sweet odor of mango pulp and strawberries.

sjsmith@gmail.com was from Vegas too; he sympathized with Brendon’s desire to live somewhere -- anywhere -- else. He asked a few questions -- what Brendon did for a living, what he wanted to do in New York, when he was thinking of moving out.

Improbable as it seemed, he was considering letting the room to Brendon.

Brendon’s heart raced. His occupation was inconsequential; besides, there were no Smoothie Huts on the east coast. He thought up a few less-than-plausible lies: construction worker, phlebotomist, pastry chef. That didn’t seem the safest route. Brendon couldn’t stand the sight of blood. In the end he told the truth. He worked a dead-end menial job, he had a little bit of money in the bank, and he wanted to try something new. It was not savvy. It might have been the opposite of savvy, actually, but Brendon had never claimed to be greatly sophisticated

He hit send.

Three days later sjsmith@gmail.com -- Spencer -- had responded; the room was Brendon’s if he wanted.

It took only a week and a half to tie up his affairs in Vegas.. His parents were disheartened when he told them, but not as disheartened as he’d expected. Maybe -- despite what what he’d thought -- they’d seen how unhappy he was. He gave a week’s notice at the Smoothie Hut, and sold almost everything he owned. What was left he squeezed into one bulging suitcase. Early on a Tuesday morning, his dad dropped him off at McCarran.

Brendon had never been on a plane before.

Twelve hours later, he stood on the stoop of a narrow building on a quiet tree-lined street. He’d navigated a labyrinth of subways to make it this far. He glanced down once more at the crumpled piece of paper in his hand. Folded, refolded, and folded again, it had been in his front pocket all the way from Vegas. The address was correct. It wasn't what he expected somehow, but he didn't know that he'd really expected anything at all. The stoop was tidy and swept, and there was little pine tree in a pot sitting near the door. It looked homey. He liked that.

He rang the bell. It seemed like three or four hours passed until the intercom buzzed.

"Hello?" a scratchy voice asked.

"Hi," Brendon said. "It's Brendon. I'm outside."

"Oh!," the voice said. "I'll buzz you up."

A shrill alarm sounded. Brendon opened the front door and stepped into the foyer. It was dark and a little more dismal than the exterior had suggested. The tiled floors were grim with years of accumulated filth.

The apartment was 3A, and there was no elevator. Up and up and up Brendon trudged. His shoulders ached with the weight of his overstuffed backpack. Breathing heavy as he climbed the final flight of stairs, he saw, up ahead, a door cracked open to reveal a warmly lit room beyond. A young man was standing in the door. His dark hair half hid his face, but when he saw Brendon he smiled.

It was a nice smile, the kind of smile that made a person feel welcome.

"I'm Spencer,” the man said. “I assume you figured that one out."

"Totally," Brendon said, leaning heavily against the railing. "I’m hoping you’re you not some kind of psycho who waits in the hall to steal people's luggage, so I figure you must be Spencer." He was winded.

Spencer grinned, wry. That, Brendon thought, was a very good sign. Most of the time he was met with blank and misunderstanding stares.

"It's nice to meet you," Spencer said. "Come on in and, well, make yourself at home."

The apartment was small, really small. Brendon knew that real estate in New York was expensive but he almost couldn't believe how tiny the apartment was, and how much he'd be paying to live there. Well, how much he'd be paying if things worked out. Spencer seemed like a nice guy, but Brendon wasn’t about to count his chickens before they hatched, or count his roommates before he knew if they secretly collected antique clocks or had unfortunate personal habits.

The living room looked comfortable. Nothing was too perfect or expensive. The couch was covered in big, soft, mismatched pillows and there was a beat-up Playstation 2 sitting on top of the television.

"Where's the rest of your stuff?" Spencer asked.

Brendon shuffled his feet back and forth awkwardly. "Uh, I don't really have any other stuff, actually. It was way too expensive to ship it out here, so I just brought the essentials, you know?"

He held up his bag and his guitar.

Spencer nodded, but he was frowning a little bit. "That makes sense," he said.

Brendon hefted his bag again. "So, um, where’s the room?"

Spencer blinked. "Yeah, wow, I'm sorry." He showed Brendon to a door down the hall. "This is it."

Brendon, nearly delirious with exhaustion, stepped just inside. The room was ten feet square. Two windows set in the far wall overlooked the street; traffic noises drifted in. The walls were painted brilliant peacock blue.

"My old roommate didn't really give me much advance notice before he moved out," Spencer said apologetically. "So I didn't get a chance to paint. But if you don't like the color I can repaint this weekend or ..."

"It's fine," Brendon said. "Really. I like it. Makes me think of an aquarium."

Spencer smiled, a little. "Okay," he said. "Well, good. And uh, welcome to the apartment."

"Thanks," Brendon said, blinking, rubbing his elbow awkwardly.

"I’ll let you get settled in, but maybe later that we could go grab dinner?”

Spencer seemed hesitant, maybe a little shy, but it warmed Brendon’s heart.

“Yeah,” he said, beaming. “That would be great.”

Spencer smiled too, once more, and then left.

Brendon listened to the shallow footfalls recede.

"It’s going to be great ," he said again, mostly to himself.

Brendon was three thousand miles from anyone and anything he'd ever known, and this little bedroom painted blue was his home, for now. The building was heated with baseboard hot water that gurgled through all of the old pipes. Outside, a horn blared. There were a few dust bunnies in the corners of the room. Brendon should have asked Spencer if he could borrow the broom. He'd like to think he could, but he didn't know. He was so far away from everything he knew, and living with a person he'd spoken less than a hundred words to in his entire life.

Nothing had ever seemed as uncertain as Brendon's life did at that moment.

He wasn’t at all sure when that had changed. Brendon worked an endless series of excruciating jobs. He was a barback in an awful night club in the meat-packing district. He was a personal assistant for a motivational speaker. He was the second assistant director for a music video. He took care of their neighbor’s parrots when she went to West Palm Beach for the winter.

Still, he thought, sitting on the couch next to Spencer, not long after decided he would take the job in Los Angeles, it had changed, perhaps slowly, an unaccountable seeping sense of comfort and belonging that had filled his life up to the bring. As he cycled through a series of improbably jobs, he became accustomed to coming home (if he wasn’t on a night shift) to find Spencer working at the tiny kitchen table. He learned that if he started cooking (and Brendon’s culinary skills started with macaroni and cheese and ended with grilled cheese) Spencer could be counted on to wander into the kitchen and make easy, idle conversation. He also knew the secret of how to get the damn smoke alarm to shut up with a carefully aimed whack with the handle of a broom. If Brendon mentioned one day as they ate pasta for the third night in a row that he really missed his mom’s meatloaf, he might come home the next to find Spencer in the kitchen, muddling through a recipe he’d printed from the Internet. Spencer wasn’t exactly a great cook, but he was willing to make the effort, and if the meatloaf didn’t really taste a thing like his mom’s, well -- Brendon never said anything.

At some point they’d started going grocery shopping together, a Saturday morning ritual. No point in buying two separate jars of peanut butter, two separate gallons of milk. Spencer made the list and Brendon gathered their collection of reusable tote bags. They planned meals, and rented movies. It wasn’t like … maybe it was kind of weird. Brendon didn’t know if it was standard roommate behavior. He’d never had roommates before, had never done the college dorm thing. He hadn’t counted on Spencer becoming a friend or anything, hadn’t expected that this random guy who he emailed to become a friend, let alone his best friend.

He'd never expected Spencer to become the most important person in his life, but somehow, somewhere along the line, he kind of had.

And now, he was leaving.

There wasn't really anything Brendon could do that wouldn't make him look like an incredibly selfish jerk. This was Spencer's dream job -- the perfect marriage of his love of business and his desire to do something good, something meaningful. He'd finally be free of his loathsome boss, free from the the grind of a tedious corporate office.

Brendon knew how badly he wanted this. The fact that Brendon was kind of shattered at the idea of him leaving was something he had to hide.

So, he feigned excitement when Spencer told him that Ryan had offered to let him sleep on the couch for a few months when he moved out there.

"Just a temporary thing," Spencer said. "I think we learned our lesson last time we lived together. Anything longer than a few months and we'd kill each other." He smiled, wry. "You should have seen this place when it was me and him ... it was kind of like a war zone at times."

Brendon laughed, weakly. He didn't like to think about the roommates that had preceded him in the apartment, all those other people with whom Spencer had shared a narrow slice of his life. "Maybe living in LA has chilled him out," he said, hopefully. "Because people are supposed to be totally relaxed out there. I don't know what you're going to do."

"I'm relaxed," Spencer said. "Are you saying I'm not relaxed?"

Brendon grinned. "I'm just saying you're a little tense. Like, I think I've met robots more relaxed than you."

Brendon was just teasing; Spencer knew that.

So Spencer took the job, with little fanfare. He spoke often about his conference calls with the CEO, spoke glowingly about the company's mission (something about collecting books and funding green start-ups in third world countries and recycling) and his role, how he could help them expand their reach and do a lot more good. Brendon listened attentively and felt kind of bad about his own dumb job (sorting mail for an architectural firm, this month ... not the worst job he'd ever had, by any stretch, but he realized the work he was doing was just a notch above something that could be done by a trained ape).

Spencer was leaving in three weeks. He made the phone calls needed to get the apartment put into Brendon's name, because one day he came home with a manila envelope and tossed it onto the table, where Brendon sat.

"She's all yours," Spencer said, happily.

"What?" Brendon asked.

"I picked up the lease for you from Hester," he said. "The apartment's yours. You've just got to sign and mail it back."

"Oh," Brendon said, opening the envelope, glancing at the thick packet of papers in side. "Oh. Uh. Awesome."

Spencer frowned, eyes going squinty. "What's wrong? Have you not found a roommate yet? I though you were asking around."

"Oh, no," Brendon said. "I've totally got a few leads."

"Good," Spencer said, relaxing. He smiled, softly. "I'm really glad you're staying here. After so long, this place feels like home. It wouldn't feel right for some stranger to be living here, you know?"

Brendon's throat went dry. He swallowed. "Oh," he said, worrying a bit of red paint that had dried on the table long ago (from that time they made those apple-shaped pinatas for Shane's birthday). "Totally. I mean, plus, when you decide you can't take all those hippie freaks in LA and come back to the cold, cynical bosom of New York, you've got to have to a place to stay, right?"

Spencer rolled his eyes. "I don't think bosoms can be cynical," he said.

Brendon did have tons of people who were interested in the apartment, people he worked with, friends of friends. He didn't even have to post an ad on Craigslist. It was dispiriting though, to show the place to people, knocking tentatively on Spencer's bedroom door so they could see the room. In the end, he decided to give the room to a guy named Dallon, a good guy, a fellow Mormon ex-pat from the West Coast. Brendon knew him from around, from the few times he’d played in showcases at the bar where Brendon worked. He was a musician and a hard worker and kind of hilarious, and he cooked a mean spaghetti sauce. Brendon should have been so psyched to have him for a roommate.

But he wasn't Spencer, and Brendon was really not very psyched at all.

Finally, the day came when all of the stuff that Spencer was shipping to LA had been boxed up and sent off and all of his bags were packed and there was nothing to do but sit in the living room with his suitcases next to the couch, Saturday morning cartoons on the television but volume turned low.

"Are you excited?" Brendon asked, quietly.

"Yeah," Spencer said. "I am ... excited, and nervous, and ... "

"What?" Brendon said, maybe a little too sharply, hoping, secretly, for some last minute change of heart, like what always happened in movies.

"Sad, too," Spencer said. "To be leaving all this."

Brendon was going to offer some practical, solid advice, like 'Well, that's to be expected' or 'I'm sure you'll be so busy once you get to California you won't even have time to miss me' but before he could make an idiot out of himself Spencer's cellphone buzzed.

The cab had arrived.

And that was it. One last, quick embrace, and a hurried tumble down the stairs with all of Spencer's luggage, and then once last glance out the dirty back window of a yellow cab -- Spencer waving, his eyes scrunched a little, but indistinct behind the dirt anyway -- and then he was gone.

Brendon breathed in. Dallon was moving in the next day, and the apartment needed to be cleaned.

And it's not like the world ended. It's not like Spencer dropped off the face of the earth or anything.

(In fact he texted as soon as his plane landed -- 'On the ground. It's raining :('. Spencer's texts were almost always in the correct case and made use of proper spelling, which made it all the more ridiculously inappropriate that he always included little smiley face thingies. (Brendon would not call them emoticons.) Brendon had mocked him for it. Brendon would mock him again, until the end of time.)

And it's not like things with Dallon were bad, either. He was tidy and busy -- he worked as a carpet-cleaner while he tried to gain a footing in the city's singer-songwriter scene, and he worked long, hard hours and then came home and promptly went to bed. But, on nights when he hadn’t worked, he was good company. He found funny videos on the internet to share with Brendon and he liked the same dumb television shows. He was a good guy. Brendon knew how much worse things could have been, knew he’d gotten lucky a second time.

Life went on. The long autumn dulled into a longer, colder winter. There was more snow that winter than there had been since Brendon had moved to New York. Suddenly, his sneakers weren't up to the task of walking New York streets, and he bought a pair of ridiculous nylon boots lined with black fluff. They looked like something you’d wear to a ski lodge, with a matching puffy coat and ear muffs. He took a picture of them with his phone and texted it to Spencer and got a 'Nice. Next you'll be wearing Uggs!' in return.

Brendon swore it would never come to that.

He played a few shows in January, courtesy of his friend Pete, who was organizing a showcase. He got up every morning and showered and went about his routine -- work, groceries, nights out at friends. Nothing had changed, really. It's not like he'd spent all his time with Spencer, before -- no, hardly. They'd not been some weird pair of co-dependent losers. Spencer was so busy with his work most of the time, anyway, and he had his own little routine that Brendon had been vaguely aware of, like the slow, steady orbit of a not-too-distant moon. But those times that they had spent together -- oh, those times Brendon missed.

He was sighing and moping one grey day on set with Shane. Brendon always volunteered to go along and help with his shoots, even when Shane couldn’t pay. This day, though, there wasn’t much that he really needed to do and in his idleness he’d settled under the dark cloud-cover of a black mood. Couldn't be helped, really. He'd gotten an email from Spencer that made it sound like Los Angeles was probably the most wonderful place on earth -- warm beaches, sunshine in winter, good Mexican food and margaritas with a new friend from work. Did man need anything else? Brendon had started writing a reply, enthusing about a feigned and new-found love for winter sports but his heart wasn't in it and he deleted that draft and written some hard, short, hurt response, something he hoped made clear to Spencer that no, Brendon didn't miss him. Certainly didn't spend hours a day thinking about him. Was so busy, in fact, that he barely remembered he existed.

He didn't really think Spencer would ever think that. Spencer knew him too well.

He was telling all that to Shane, bundled up in someone's spare hoodie with the hood pulled up.

"I don't know," Brendon said. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm a miserable wreck of a human being. I should be happy that Spencer's happy. He's my friend."

Shane looked thoughtful. Shane was a smart guy, and he was five years Brendon's senior. Brendon looked to Shane for all sorts of worldly advice.

"Well," he said. "If you ask me, man, it kind of sound like you're talking about someone you broke up with."

Brendon squawked, indignant. "What? That's ridiculous. Spencer's my roommate -- my friend. It's not like ... It was never."

It hadn’t ever been like that. Not with them.

Shane gave him a dubious look. "Dude, I have a lot of friends. I've even had a lot of roommates. I've never pined after a single one of them. It's been like, four months, man."

There was a flicker of truth in Shane's words, but it wasn't ... that just wasn't how it had been with Spencer. Just wasn't.

Not that there was a specific reason it hadn’t been like that, really. They were both gay, both out since high school. And Brendon had always found Spencer attractive, physically. He was always annoyed when Spencer adopted a wearying, self-depreciating attitude after a bad date. He had about the worst taste in men of anyone Brendon knew, but still, Brendon couldn't understand how he thought he wasn’t hot enough for the endless string of greasy banker-types he dated.

Spencer would go out with some weird creep wearing a suit that cost more than Brendon made in like, a year, someone who just reeked of asshole, and not get a call back, and then he’d spend a week making quietly insulting jokes about his looks. Brendon sometimes laughed along but it always made something deep inside him twinge. He knew that Spencer had been a little chubby in high school, knew that Spencer hadn't had great skin, knew that it had taken him a little longer than most to grow into himself, but he was beautiful. Brendon might not have been the most impartial judge, but, as an experienced connoisseur of the male form, he was sure of the fact that Spencer was beautiful. He was tall and the lines of his body were elegant. His blue eyes were clear and bright. His face was pleasant, just a shade closer to pretty than to handsome.

Brendon wasn’t blind. He’d realized all of that, like basically right away. It wasn’t something a person could just miss.

And the other stuff had never even been a question. Spencer was the nicest person Brendon had ever met, unless he didn’t like you and then he was snarky and hilarous. He was serious and immature in turns. He didn’t get mad when Brendon left wet towels on the bathroom floor. He called his mother on the phone twice a week. He was the one person in the world that could always make Brendon smile, the one person that Brendon would never mind hanging out with, any hour of the day or night.

It has just … there had just never been a moment where all of that had meant anything other than ‘Spencer’s the greatest roommate in the world’. (Seriously, Brendon had gotten him a card that said that one time -- no special reason, he’d just seen it in some store downtown that specialized in greeting cards that cost more than Brendon would normally pay for lunch. It was kind of ridiculous to pay six dollars for a card, but the pleased, gentle smile on Spencer’s face when he read the card was worth much, much more than that.)

Shane was staring, looking critical.

“Brendon, dude, it’s really none of my business what went on between you and Spencer, but I’m going to tell you that I always kind of wondered why the two of you hadn’t hooked up.”

Brendon swallowed. His belly had knotted tight again, just like before, an unexpected worm of anxiety in his gut. Down the street, some pedestrian was trying to get around the poor production assistant who was blockading the sidewalk. Brendon stared, interested vaguely, while all the gears in his head spun a million miles an hour.

“I don’t know,” he said at last. “We just didn’t. Maybe … I don’t think I’m Spencer’s type.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “You are so totally Spencer’s type,” he said.

“I’m not,” Brendon protested, feebly. It wasn’t something he’d ever thought about before, but … no, he was nothing like those wealthy well-dressed men that Spencer dated. “I don’t own a single thing from Brooks Brothers.”

Shane laughed. “I’m not talking about those jerks that the people he worked with introduced him to. But like, remember that guy he dated last summer?”

“Ezra?” Brendon frowned. He remembered Ezra: a musician, an Ivy League grad, dark-haired and hot, in a kind of wholesome boyish way. He’d been pretty awesome. Brendon had never really liked him. He’d secretly celebrated when Spencer, long-faced, announced they’d broken up.

“He could have been your brother,” Shane said, eyebrow raised.

The pedestrian, indignant, was still making a fuss down the block. Shane looked over his shoulder. The poor PA was waiving his arms, clip-board in hand.

“I’m going to have to go handle this,” he said.

Brendon nodded. He stared at the wet pavement. Shane wasn’t right. If things had been like that with Spencer, he would have realized, would have noticed Spencer’s lingering glances, noticed something. There was no way that they could have lived together for so long and both been so oblivious …

Two weeks later, Brendon was sitting on the couch with a wineglass in one hand and the remote in the other. The three-quarters-empty bottle of five dollar red sat at his feet, cork firmly in. Toy Story 3 was on the television; tears ran down Brendon’s cheeks.

The door opened. It was Dallon. He glanced over, and his eyes widened comically.

“What happened?” he asked. “Did someone die? Did Andy give the toys to the little girl already?”

Brendon sniffled and chuckled. “Not yet,” he said.

“Oh good,” Dallon said. “That’s my favorite part. Breaks my little heart every time.”

Once he’d changed from his work clothing, Dallon came and sat down next to Brendon. Together they cried through the end of the movie. It was true; it got Brendon too, every time.

As the credits rolled, Dallon asked, “Really, what’s going on? What brought on this mid-day sob fest?”

Brendon wiped his nose. “I think I’m in love with Spencer,” he said.

Dallon frowned. “Oh shit,” he said, cursing uncharacteristically.

“Yeah,” Brendon said, and uncorked his wine. He drank he dregs straight from the bottle.

Really, there was nothing Brendon could do. Nothing that didn’t seem slightly outrageous, anyway. But it was like a punch in the gut, every day to wake up and for just one moment expect to walk out into the kitchen and see Spencer scowling at the coffee pot. Just one moment that delusion lasted, and then he remembered. Spencer was in California now, and Brendon was an idiot.

That was obvious enough now.

“Maybe I’m just romanticizing him now that he’s gone,” Brendon said, staring sadly at his plate of pad thai. He was on his third beer; he was a little woozy.

Shane, who’d invited him over to watch football on a night that Regan was out with friends, shrugged. “Do you think that’s what you’re doing?”

“Maybe,” Brendon said. “Like, dude, he can be kind of an ass about some stuff, you know? He used to get so pissed when I’d leave my shoes by the front door. He always said that sooner or later someone was going to trip and break their neck. I mean, come on, that’s like something my grandma would say.”

“That’s pretty awful,” Shane agreed, slurping some pad woon sen.

“And I used to get so sick of his ‘poor sad me’ act,” Brendon said defiantly. Maybe he was right -- maybe everything did look better in hindsight. It felt good to vent about all those tiny, minute irritations that he’d swept under the rug in the interest of peace and harmony. “Like, yeah, working in a office sucks, I totally get it, but he made like sixty grand a year! It’s not like anybody was forcing him to become an accountant anyway.”

“You’re totally right,” Shane said, gently.

“He doesn’t know how good he has it,” Brendon said bitterly, drunkenly. “Like, he’s young and he’s got this great job helping people that actually pays a living wage and he’s having a great time in California, I totally know it. He’s probably got a new roommate who’s like …. a professional surfer or a movie star or something.”

“A movie star.” Shane’s mouth quirked in a ghost of a smile.

“Could be,” Brendon said, petulant. The booze made him sleepy and grouchy. “I don’t even miss him, really. It’s just … phantom roommate syndrome.”

“What?” Shane asked. “Dude, what are you talking about?”

“Like, okay,” Brendon said. “You know those people who like get a limb amputated and afterward think they can feel it itching? That’s totally what it is with Spencer and me. It’s like, I don’t really miss him, I just THINK I do.”

Shane stared at him, bemused. “I don’t know if that metaphor holds up.”

Brendon pushed his plate away. He had no appetite. Shane was right. It didn’t hold up at all.

“I do miss him,” he said in a tiny voice. “I think I love him.”

“I know,” Shane said, softly. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” Brendon said, miserable. He laid his head on his hands and listened to the raucous announcers calling the Giants game and wondered what Spencer was doing, right at that very moment.

Brendon wasn’t the kind of person to be kept down, though. He never had been. He made the best of things, and he was impetuous. That’s what had gotten him out of his parents’ basement and into Spencer’s apartment in the first place. He had to do something. He knew that. And in the first days of February, he hatched a plan.

Okay, so he didn’t actually have what one would call a lucrative career (he’d moved on from the mail sorting job and now worked recording audio books -- his boss said he had a great voice for it), but he had a few hundred bucks in the bank. He also had three guitars; two of them sold on CraigsList brought in another three hundred dollars. It was a desperate gamble, sure, but the thought of enduring this horrible uncertainty forever was worse than knowing he was wiping out his life’s savings for a foolish romantic gesture.

February fourteenth wasn’t the best day to fly, but he found a not-too-bad price for a ticket and booked it right away. His schedule at the audiobook place was pretty flexible. He told them he had to go out of town and they asked no questions. Dallon supported his plan wholeheartedly: “When your life turns into a rom-com, can I be the quirky and unconventionally handsome friend who gives you sage advice and provides comic relief?”

When Brendon told Shane, he just smiled and said, “I think this is the right move, dude.”

The day before Valentine’s Day, Brendon took the train to JFK; for the first time since he’d flown out to New York years before, he queued nervously in front of the departures board. He had the good fortune to get a window seat; as soon as the plane was off the ground, he put in his earbuds and tried to play out the scene in his head as he hoped it would go: knocking on Spencer’s door, his bag on his back and a bunch of flowers in his hand. Spencer, unsuspecting, would be confused at first, but glad to see Brendon of course. After Brendon’s confession of love, his eyes would go soft and dewy (Brendon didn’t know what dewy eyes looked like, exactly, but there were a lot of them in the cheap romance novels his mom hid under the sink in the bathroom; those had been favorites of his during adolescence). Spencer would admit that he’d been in love with Brendon for years, since the very beginning. They’d laugh at their foolishness, and live happily ever after as scene faded to black.

Right.

It might happen like that. Totally possible.

He got into LA late, and it took forever for the cab to crawl through the traffic to Spencer’s condo. He’d moved, pretty recently. Brendon had his new address scrawled on a piece of paper, clutched in his sweaty palm. It was warmer than it had been in New York; he was suffocatingly hot in his winter jacket. The drive didn’t speak. The radio was off. The silence was interrupted only by the staccato cry of frustrated drivers venting via horn.

Spencer lived in a bland, new development, some way out from the heart of the city. The condos were modern and grey. Under a cloudy evening sky, they looked strangely institutional. The beach was nearby, near enough that Brendon thought he could smell a marine odor in the air. Spencer’s unit was the last in a row of similar units, distinguished only by the brushed stainless steel numbers nailed up beside the doors, and by the color of the mid-size sedanparked out front.

There was no car parked in front of Spencer’s condo.

Brendon rang the bell and waited, but nobody came to the door.

He dropped his bag and sat down on the cold stoop. The air was damp and cool. He was weary, exhausted, tired to the bone.

This had been such a stupid idea. Spencer probably had plans, probably had plans for Valentine’s Day, probably was going to think Brendon was a crazy freak for flying out here without any advance warning. He squeezed his eyes shut. He barely had a hundred bucks in his wallet but part of him wanted to go run after the cab and ask to be taken to one of the run-down motels near the airport. He could lay in the filthy bed and watch network television until his return flight, pretend this was nothing more than a bad dream.

But before he could work up the nerve to do anything, Spencer came home. His car was silver and clean. He probably washed it once a week, regular as clockwork. Brendon would bet money on it.

Spencer got out of his car. He was wearing a hoodie and sweatpants; probably, he hadn’t come back from a hot date. He was pale and he looked thinner than Brendon remembered -- too thin. Brendon frowned.

Spencer seemed to notice Brendon sitting on his step at only the last moment. He squinted. “What are you doing here, dude?” he asked. He sounded weird, voice all deep and honking.

“What’s wrong with your voice?” Brendon asked, frowning.

Spencer made a pitiful face. “I’m sick,” he said. “I had to go get more Nyquil.”

Brendon grinned, despite himself. “You are so backward. You never get sick. You’re the only person who would wait until they moved to California to get the death plague.”

Spencer laughed, but the laugh turned into a cough, deep in his throat. It didn’t sound good.

“Have you gone to the doctor?” Brendon asked.

Spencer had the good grace to look ashamed. “Not yet, but if I’m not feeling better tomorrow I’m gonna to call and make an appointment. It’s just a cold.”

“Oh god,” Brendon said. “A death cold! Get inside the house before it turns into pneumonia.”

Spencer’s key stuck in the lock. Brendon shoved his hands in his pockets. The condo was dark and quiet; Spencer lived alone. The open-plan first floor was spotted with Ikea furniture and unpacked boxes. There were no pictures on the walls. Spencer’s bicycle leaned against one wall. Spencer took off his shoes and put them away in the hall closet. Brendon followed suit; some things would never change.

Under the artificial light, Spencer looked ominously pale, with dark circles under his eyes. Brendon felt awkward, intrusive. Spencer shuffled into the kitchen to dose himself with cough medicine. Brendon followed. Spencer made a face as he swallowed.

“Hate grape,” he said, wiping his mouth. “So, I’m kind of out of it, but I didn’t know you were coming, right?”

“No,” Brendon said.

“Okay,” Spencer said. “Because if I forgot something like that, I’d be kind of worried.” He leaned back against the counter. “So, um, what are you doing here?”

Brendon swallowed. This was nothing like he’d imagined, no grand gesture, no swell of music, just he and Spencer, standing around in the kitchen like they’d done a hundred times before. But it felt right. It felt like they’d never spent a moment apart.

“Would you think I was crazy if I told you I flew out here because I realized that I’m in love with you?”

Spencer’s face got even paler, copy-paper pale, and then two bright red spots of heat glowed on his cheeks.

“Oh god,” Brendon said. “Can you just erase that from your memory or something?”

“No,” Spencer said quickly. “Brendon, no. I mean, I … I never. I mean, I missed you. I don’t know what that means, but I missed you so much.”

He stared at his feet for a second.

“We’re kind of dumb,” Brendon said. “Like, totally backward.”

Spencer laughed, tense and short, but it was okay. “Yeah, but we figure things out eventually, huh?”

Brendon grinned. “Totally. Oh my God, Spence, I thought you were going to hate me. I kept having these horrible visions of you like, dating some blond surfer and slamming the door in my face, and then opening it up again so you could laugh at me.”

Spencer rolled his eyes. “You’re kind of nuts, man,” he said.

“Yeah,” Brendon said.

“You want to watch tv?” Spencer asked. “I have the last season of It’s Always Sunny on DVD. And, uh, I think I’m going to fall over if I don’t sit down.”

“Come on, you,” Brendon said, grabbing his hand. “You’re going to end up with bronchitis or something. What would you do without me around?”

“I don’t know,” Spencer said. “I don’t want to know.”

Brendon grinned.

Fade to black & credits roll.


End file.
